


Jailhouse Blues

by PeachWord



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:05:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5551742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachWord/pseuds/PeachWord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal is put back in prison after OPR messed with his anklet. It takes Peter six months to release him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was cold in his cell. Well, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he had lost so much weight that he had no more fat on his body to keep himself warm. He pulled the green polyester blanket closer to his chest, though by doing so revealed his bare feet. He attempted to turn on his left side, to face the wall, but the bruising on his ribs wouldn’t allow it. He grimaced as he went to his former position, on his back, and cradled his almost certain broken arm.

He breathed in as deep as his injuries would allow, and listened to the hushed whispers of coded messages between the hundreds of other inmates around him. There would be no counting sheep that night or any other in the foreseeable future.

This was not a nightmare, this was not a dream. This was his reality.

*********

Peter noticed the smile first. It was small and it occurred when Neal’s blue eyes met his brown ones.

It was also forced.

The corners of his lips were pinched too tight when they heaved upward and he showed no teeth.

He noticed the breathing second. There was none when he sat down on the bench across from him all laden in orange. Were there other colors swirling around underneath it, he wondered.

“I’m going to get you out of here, Neal.”

He forced another smile, smaller than the one before, and nodded twice while looking him in the eyes.

“I know you didn’t steal the Rembrandt,” he continued. “You were with me that night. I know OPR altered your anklet, I just need to find a way to prove it. I’m close, though.”

“How’s Elizabeth?” he asked.

That’s when Peter realized Neal didn’t believe him.

That’s when Peter realized Neal was in trouble.

That’s when Peter realized Neal didn’t care about what happened to him.

***********

“You’re a rat,” Frankie sneered into his ear. He was big. Much bigger than Neal. With broad shoulders, a mighty chest of steal, and arms that poured out iron. “A pretty rat, though.”

Those arms of iron encased his waist, and that chest of steel laid hard and flat across his back.

“I—”

“No. No, no, no,” Frankie said. “You don’t get to talk. You did all the talking you needed to put my brother and cousin behind bars, when you were working _with_ the F.B.I.”

Neal’s lips quivered. Afraid that if they formed a sound he would be subject to another beating.

“You’re my bitch now,” Frankie said. “Which a good thing. You don’t have to worry about the others anymore.”

Neal was worried nonetheless.

He took Peter’s name off his visitor’s list the next day, for Neal Caffrey was certainly no fool.

*********

Frankie was rough. Rough and hard. Neal pleaded with him to stop the first time. He remembered crying and begging. Then he remembered that they weren’t alone. That the other 1,358 inmates in their cells could hear him beg, hear him cry. He also remembered them laughing at him.

“Take it, pretty boy!”

“Give it to him good, Frankie!”

“I got him next!”

He eventually passed out; the pain was too great. When he woke, he wondered just how much blood a person would have to lose in order not to wake up again. 

*********

Neal was a commodity in prison. He looked younger than he was, he was thinner than he should have been, and he had a face that rivaled a Greek masterpiece statute. Neal was worth a lot in prison, and it didn’t take Frankie a long time to figure that out.

Neal was used, traded, fucked.

He was used for fun, used to get his renter’s rocks off, used for a good time, used to replicate the softness and gentleness of a woman.

He was traded for cigarettes, extra phone calls, and an extra piece of toast at breakfast.

He was fucked like an animal, against dirty walls and even dirtier floors. He was fucked beyond comprehension sometimes and then no one would touch him for days.

He liked and disliked when that happened.

*********

Solitary confinement was bad.

It wasn’t the loneliness or lack of contact with others, it was the stillness. It was the silence. It was the perpetuity of being alone with his thoughts twenty-three hours a day. And that’s what really fucked him up good.

He didn’t stop eating because he wanted to starve. He didn’t want to set a motion that he was doing this for a strike. He simply stopped because he didn’t care. He couldn’t see the usefulness in it or the purpose.

And then when they took him to the infirmary because his mouth wouldn’t respond when they called out his name, and it turned out he was on the brink of his kidneys shutting down, that’s really when all hell broke loose.

“These injuries are recent,” Doctor Jay said, placing gauze over the bruise on Neal’s forearm.

“Which is why we moved him to solitary,” Warden Lant said, “for his own protection.”

“Yes, that’s why he is the picture perfect image of health.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Doctor Jay said, smiling. “I’ll need to do a full examination on him, Please, give us some privacy.”

“Neal, you have bruising on your hips and thighs. Do you know how that happened?”

Neal looked the middle-aged man in the face. “Yes,” he said, showing no emotion.

“Do you want to file a report?”

“Will it undo it?”

Doctor Jay smiled sadly. Neal received those sad smiles before. From teachers, from truant officers, from lunch ladies. _‘It’s not your fault’_ seemed to be the message conveyed from them. “No.”

“Then no.”

**********

It was 7:02 p.m. Why did Peter remember this exact time? Simply because when he picked up his ringing telephone that rainy Tuesday evening, an automated female voice told him. “ _An inmate from Sing Sing Correctional Prison is attempting to call you. If you would like to accept, please say ‘yes.’”_

“Yes!” Peter didn’t mean to scream, but he had not seen or spoken to Neal in almost three months. “Neal?” There was silence, but Peter heard the breathing. “Neal?”

“Hi,” he finally said.

Peter swore he heard tears. “Are you okay?” Again, there was silence. “Neal, I don’t know why you took me off your visitor’s list. Please, put me back on it. I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

“Please . . . just . . . talk.”

“Talk? What do you mean? I can—”

“I just . . . I need to hear a familiar voice.”

And so Peter started rambling immediately. About the baseball game he just turned off during the third inning, about the pot roast he burnt earlier that evening, about the stain on his new tie he was trying to hide from Elizabeth. And yes, he heard the tears again; muffled, contained, sickening.

The automated female voice cut him off. “ _There is exactly one minute remaining on this call._ ”

“Thank you, Peter.”

\-- _Click_ \--

*******

It took a good six months in total for Peter to exonerate Neal from OPR’s chains. He found the evidence he needed, perhaps by not totally legal means--ahem--hackers, and showed Reese Hughes just how Neal’s anklet had been tampered with.

Agents were fired and some were put on disciplinary probation, but nevertheless, Neal would be out of prison once again and back on an anklet.

He entered the jail and didn’t bother to sign in. Three months earlier, when he attempted to do just that, he was turned away for the simple reason that his name was no longer on the approved list of visitors set by Neal Caffrey. Peter told the guards that it had to be a mistake, but no, the guards assured him it wasn’t and that Neal Caffrey even warned them that this conversation was 100% certain to take place. Peter didn’t understand at first, but his dear wife suggested that perhaps  sitting in a jail cell for a crime he didn’t commit would anger Neal and was such the reason for the cutoff. So Peter ate and slept less and fought more. He stayed nights and some weekends looking for the answers buried so deep underneath, and when he finally found it, he went bright and early to Sing Sing in an official F.B.I. capacity to spring his criminal informant free.

He had coffee and doughnuts waiting in the car for his friend and he hoped they would still be warm by the time the _both_ of them returned to it.

So there he sat, in the visitors room, with his stack of papers that needed to be signed, again this was official F.B.I. business and this inmate could not turn him away.

But then the inmate walked in, and there was so much about this man Peter did not know.

He didn’t know his face. It wasn’t freakishly handsome anymore. It was gaunt, with hollow cheeks and angular lines. It was also gray and ashen.

He didn’t know his walk. It wasn’t fluid, it didn’t dance to a rhythm he once callously adhered to. It was slow and sluggish, with a noticeable limp to boot.

He didn’t know his body. It wasn’t lean and strong, sculpted in the all the right places. Instead it was a shell, curved and cracked, ready to break upon a small devil sized amount of extra weight that dared to be laid on it.

And oh, the bruises. Dark and purple, light and blue. Carved into his right cheek, underneath both eyes, and the left side of his face that zig-zagged along his jaw line.

He sat down, across from him, yes, still laden in orange. The harsh fluorescents above them highlighted his paleness and the contrast of red in his eyes. Plus there was some on his lips, dried, bubbled underneath the chapped skin of his lips.

Peter’s mouth hung open, surely dazed.

“I fought back,” Neal said.  “You know?” And he said it with such simplicity, such rawness; like nothing was wrong with this.

“I’m . . . I’m here to take you home,” was all Peter could manage. Perhaps it was the heavy guilt settling into his stomach that aborted his tongue from forming anything more meaningful.

“Okay,” Neal said. And so he took the big pile of papers and the pen next to it and started signing. He didn’t look at the words, at the lengthy paragraphs filled with restrictions, regulations . . . nonsense, he just signed on the lines that had his name printed underneath them.

And just like undoing a pair of handcuffs behind his back, it took Neal Caffrey 180 seconds to set himself free.

***********

Neal didn’t drink the coffee or eat the doughnuts. He didn’t even bother to tie his tie. He walked out of prison in the same clothes he had been taken in, but he surely walked out a different man. He didn’t talk in the car, but no questions were asked. Peter focused on the road, afraid if he look at Neal again he would cry right there in the open.

“Do you want to go to a doctor?”

“For what?” Neal asked, looking at the other passing cars on the freeway.

Peter still didn’t look at him. “For . . .”

 “Maybe. I should get an AIDS test.” The way he said it, soft and under his breath, conveyed the idea that Neal didn’t necessarily mean to utter those words. They were meant to pass through his fucked up head only.

Peter swallowed the lump in his throat. He put his right blinker on and moved from the middle to the right lane. Then he moved from the right lane to the emergency side lane. He eased his foot on the break until the car came to a complete stop. He shifted the gear into park and for about twenty seconds just stared at the steering wheel. And when he couldn’t take it anymore he covered his eyes and silently wept.

“Don’t worry, Peter. I’m okay.”

It was the biggest lie Neal Caffrey ever said aloud.


	2. Chapter 2

Neal did very strange things after he was released from prison.

He stood by walls whenever possible, his back against them.

He washed his hands twice. Once to get his hands clean and then another to get them _really_ clean.

And the number 4 was very bad. Actually numbers 4, 14, 24, 34, 44 were bad. . . anything ending with the number 4 was off limits. House numbers, apartments, steps. If they ended with 4, forget it.

His eating habits changed. Yes, he ate, but there were rules. Not one piece of food could touch another. If his sandwich at the deli came with a pickle, and the pickle touched the bread, that was it. Finito. Bye. He wouldn’t eat any of it.

He wouldn’t drink from cans, or even glasses. Water bottles that _he_ twisted the cap off the seal only.

Elizabeth invited him to a farmer’s market a few Sundays after he was released. He stood by a stand, apples, and saw the dirt on them. Then he saw the people, with their germs, with their dirt, touch them. Pick them up, inspect them, put them back in the pile. He excused himself and vomited the oatmeal he made himself earlier.

He had no earthly explanation for his behavior.

He didn’t apologize for it though.

And no one around him mentioned it.

*******

He got the shakes again, just like after Kate died. Sorry, was murdered in front of his eyes. His hands shook when he counted change, when he texted on his cell phone, when he shuffled cards with Mozzie.

He stopped carrying pennies, used the talk-to-text feature on his cell, and started playing solitaire on his iPad.

*******

He started hitting people.

Jones was first.

He was in the break area, twisting the cap off a bottle of water when Jones came up behind him. His hand clasped down on Neal’s shoulder. “You doing alright, Caffrey?” he asked innocently.

It was an instant reaction. His left arm went up, elbow first, and he threw it back hard. He goddamn elbowed Jones in the stomach. Not hard, but the FBI agent was not expecting it and so he stumbled back so hard that his thighs hit the table behind him.

The noise caused a bit of a ruckus, and several of the other agents looked up from their desks. Neal spun around, his face red with embarrassment. Jones mouth hung partially open.

“Sorry,” Neal whispered. There were tears in his eyes.

Peter emerged from his office, seeing only a fraction of the occurrence through the clear glass. By the time he stood by the partition, Neal was gone. His open water bottle lay flat on the table, water spilled and seeping, dripping onto the cream linoleum floor like tears.

Peter knocked on the door to the Men’s room. Even though it was communal and anyone could enter, he knew better. He entered and saw Neal over the sink. Steam from the water filled the air in front of his face and there was a rather lathery mess in it, Neal’s hands included.

“You alright?”

But Neal didn’t answer. Neal didn’t hear him.

Peter sighed. He took a step closer and grabbed his arm.

Peter was the second person he hit.

********

“Eat,” Peter said.

Neal looked at the pizza on his plate. He smelled the garlic and the cheese and his stomach growled loudly.

“Eat, Neal.”

He breathed in deeper and then shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He stood up and retreated towards the bathroom.

“Why not, Neal?” Peter asked again, following him.

“It’s dirty,” he replied as he turned on the hot water faucet of the sink. It took 38 seconds for it to turn scalding hot.

“It’s not.”

“Yes it is!” he screamed.

“I ate two slices. It’s not dirty, Neal.”

“Whoever made it, their hands were dirty. Probably didn’t wash them—”

“Stop it,” Peter said. “Now come back to the table and eat.”

“I saw the dirt on it.”

“You’ve lost too much weight. You need to eat, Neal.”

“Yes, and yes. I want to eat, I really do. But I just can’t.”

Peter slammed the wall with his open palm, beyond frustrated. He tried to be patient, he really did. But it was too much. “Goddamit, Neal. You need to stop playing these games. Snap out of it already!”

Neal took a deep breath. He breathed in the lavender and almond oil dispensed and lathered in his hands.  He rinsed them and grabbed the maroon hand towel. He then lifted his head and looked in the mirror, catching Peter’s reflection. The two men stared at each other. Finally Neal turned around and asked, “you really want to hurt me, don’t you?”

Peter was shaking he was so angry. “I want you to get better.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you just turn _that_ button on then?”

Peter left after that. Neal threw the six slices of warm pizza into the trash and went to bed hungry.

*********

They were sitting in the van. The treacherous van, doing a stakeout. Diana was the one going undercover at a museum as a docent. Peter didn’t want to put Neal in the field just yet, and Neal wasn’t complaining. He was sitting in the corner with his headphones on, eating a banana that he himself had peeled.

It smelled like Purrell sanitizing solution in there though, because Neal practically doused himself in it before eating.

He looked terrible, Peter thought as he looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. His eyes were red, sunken in. His body had practically withered away. He wore bulky sweaters instead of Byron’s jackets to keep himself warm.

Another hour went by before Diana returned. The man they were investigating, Dante Clift, didn’t show up to sell his allegedly forged Picasso. They would try again tomorrow. “I’ll drive you home, if you want,” Peter said.

Neal nodded. “Thanks.”

“I want you to see someone,” Peter said as he merged onto the West Side Highway. “A therapist or something.”

Neal didn’t respond right away. He readjusted his position and leaned against the seat. His fingers clasped together and he peered out the window. “Is you mother still alive, Peter?” he asked when they came to a red light.

Peter turned to him. “My mother? Yes, she’s in Chicago with my father.”

“How often do you talk to her?”

“I don’t know, maybe once a month. Neal, I’m trying to talk to you—”

“My mom died when I was 21. Slit her wrists, I’m told. I left home when I was 18, never spoke to her again. When I was in prison, the first time, all I wanted to do was talk to her. But she was dead, you know?”

“Neal—”

He chucked. “I even called the number to our house a few times when I was in there. Of course I knew she wouldn’t pick up. I was hoping maybe the answering machine would play, with her voice. Stupid, I know.  I even bypassed the phones in the prison, you know, so no one would have to ‘accept’ the call. A woman picked up. She sounded young, I heard her kids in the background laughing. She told me I had the wrong number every time.”

Peter sighed and stopped again at the next red light. “Neal, I want to help you—”

Neal looked down at his hands. “You should call your mom every week, Peter. Maybe even every day. You won’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone.”

Peter nodded and pressed on the gas when the light turned green. He knew exactly what Neal was talking about.

*********

“I need you to talk about what happened,” Peter said.

Neal swallowed the lump in his throat. “You know what happened.”

“I need you to tell me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to get better! Because this . . . this isn’t working.”

So the tears came, just like they had that time he called Peter at 7:02 p.m. on that rainy Tuesday night. And yes, they were muffled, contained, and sickening. “Is that what you think, Peter? That I _don’t_ want to get better? You think I like counting steps, bathing in Purrell, practically starving myself as to not ingest the dirt you and I both know isn’t there?”

Peter shook his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

Neal nodded, and more tears flowed. “Would it make _you_ feel better if I told you that I was raped? Pinned down by men three, four times bigger than me? That I screamed and begged for them to stop? That I was traded for an extra scoop of carrots at dinner time?”

Peter looked down at his feet.

“That a lot of nights I spent in prison were on the floor of wherever I was left, bleeding, almost to death? They called me ‘pretty boy’ and ‘rat’ when they raped me. And I tried to please them, too. I tried not to fight back because I thought, maybe, just maybe they won’t be so rough on me. And now I’m trying so goddamn hard to please you.”

Peter’s head darted up. “Me?”

“Yes! To do what you want me to do as your criminal informant, because I know if I fuck up I’m going back to prison. And I know Frankie and Pedro and Diaz are still there, just waiting for me to make me their ‘pretty boy rat’ again.”

“I do not want to send you back to prison, Neal. I really don’t.”

“But you didn’t plan on me going back the last time either, so I’m just waiting for that day. And I tell you now, if you’re my friend, if you’re a goddamn human being with a shred of a soul, I want you to tell me before you send me back, at least 15 minutes notice, so that I, just like my mother, can slit my wrists, because I’d rather die than endure that again.”

“Jesus, Neal.”

“So I count things, and I pretend dirt is on apples, and I treat anyone who innocently touches my arm as a threat because that’s what I need to do. I know it’s annoying and I’m sorry it pisses you off, but I swear, I swear, Peter, I’m not doing it on purpose.”

Peter sighed and looked at the tear stained man before him. “I know that, Neal. Not a day goes by that I don’t know that. I look at you and I just . . . I just feel so damn helpless. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was. I don’t know why OPR messed with your anklet. Nothing short of murder should have made them mess with you and send you back to prison.”

Neal wiped his tears on his sleeve and nodded.

“I just,” Peter continued. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t want to push you. Who am I to tell you how to deal with this? But I know if I just sit back and let you continue to do as you have then . . . then you are just going to die. Wither away . . . slit your wrists . . . walk into oncoming traffic because the curb was step number four.”

Neal wiped his eyes on his sleeve again. The tears wouldn’t stop. They slid out raw and hot and left him dehydrated and weak. Peter stepped forward and when he was within six inches of him, he put both his hands up and waited for a reaction. He got none. He slowly placed them around Neal until he had enclosed him. Again, he waited for a reaction.

This time, he got one.

Neal grabbed him. Put his own arms around Peter until his hands were clasped together and he squeezed. He squeezed so tight that Peter could barely breath, but he didn’t mind. Neal cried hard, harder than he ever had. And so Peter rubbed his back and patted his head, just like a father would to a small child.

“You will get better, Neal. Not because I want you to, but because _you_ want to.”

“And what if I don’t? What if I’m like this for the rest of my life?” he choked in between sobs.

“Well,” Peter said as he continued to rub his back, “you’ll have to get a monthly subscription for hand sanitizer for starters.”

Neal chuckled. He let go of Peter and took a small step back.

Peter reached into his pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. He put on the table. “There’s a name on there. Doctor Nicole Maura. She specializes in obsessive compulsive disorders and traumatic events. She’s really good. The best, actually. Typically it takes a year to get an appointment with her, but I called in my favors—and don’t worry, I used a pseudonym. You can call and make an appointment. If _you_ want.”

The two men stood for the next few minutes in a comfortable silence. Neal looked around his apartment; he looked at his picture perfect made bed, he looked at his Lysol layered wooden floors, and then he looked at his bathroom door. He wanted to run in there, dump what was left of his half full bottle of lavender soap and scrub his hands until he passed out from exhaustion.

But he didn’t. Instead he sat down at his table and opened the piece of paper. He took out his cell phone, and with shaking hands he dialed Doctor Maura’s number. After the receptionist asked his name and he gave it to her, she asked him what time would be good for him. He took a deep breath and took the plunge.

“Very good, Mr. Caffrey. Doctor Maura will see you next Monday at noon.”


End file.
